


Steal Into My Melancholy Heart

by sweetfayetanner



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 06:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21315880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetfayetanner/pseuds/sweetfayetanner
Summary: Beauty and the Beast AU. The witches and warlocks put Michael under a curse to save the world, but can Michael's human heart save his life?
Relationships: Michael Langdon/Original Female Character(s), Michael Langdon/Reader, Michael Langdon/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Steal Into My Melancholy Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this for AGES. BATB is my favorite love story/fairytale, and I thought it would suit Michael and AHS: Apocalypse perfectly.
> 
> There’s going to be a lot of changes to canon. Some characters have been left out, others have a slightly different backstory and purpose to suit this AU ‘verse. Hopefully everything makes sense as the story goes on. The title comes from the song “Evermore” in the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast, because I can’t help myself.

A thin veil of moonlight fell across the obsidian spiral, a monolith shrouded in a layer of dense fog. It parted around Cordelia Goode’s shoes, chilly and damp, clouding an otherwise clear night. The Hawthorne School looked abandoned. That was for a purpose, for protection, but a feeling clawed its way deep into her gut that suggested maybe they were already too late.

That the warlocks had suffered the same fate as her girls.

She could still hear their screams, their agony echoing in her ears. The shadow of their blood still clung to her hands. Even in the dark, she saw the trails it had leached under her nails and how it sat in the creases between her knuckles. The house had reeked of it, the blood and carnage heavy in the air, bright red pooling on the immaculate floors. She’d sat there for the longest time, minutes turning to an hour she didn’t have, hollow with grief. That house was now their tomb. Cordelia had left their bodies where they’d fallen, cold and still and pale. Fingers and lips turning blue. The halls of her school silenced.

Four had survived. It was enough, for now, to hold together Cordelia’s shattered heart.

Madison, Mallory, Coco, and Emily trailed in her wake, footsteps whispering across the dry, desert earth. She could hear their quiet weeping, their sniffling and heartache so palpable it settled on her chest like stones. They hadn’t spoken on the plane ride here, too stricken with heartache and shock and anger that words didn’t seem enough. The march up to the doors of Hawthorne felt like a funeral procession. Somber. Bleak. Their black clothes, still holding the scent of their fallen sisters’ blood, a sign of mourning rather than tradition.

Cordelia steeled herself, wiping the last of her tears from the corner of her swollen eye with the edge of her thumb, as she came to a halt at the doors. Where they were still coming from, she didn’t know. How could she have any left to cry? What would she do if they found the warlocks slaughtered inside their school?

The quiet unnerved her. The hum of crickets, the distant sway of leaves in a nocturnal wind. The strange, dark cylinder towering over them stood resolute and still as a grave. If it had become one, then she couldn’t see a way out of this. She couldn’t see a light beyond the hurt and despair. Not right now. Not when they’d already lost so much.

Every muscle in Cordelia’s body tensed when the door slid open. The surviving witches, gathered at her sides, looked up once warm, flickering light spilled over the threshold and broke the chill of the night. Golden candle light illuminated the tears that glistened on their faces.

John Henry Moore leaned against the doorway, a pale wisp of smoke coiling up from the cigarette between his fingers. Cordelia’s knees almost buckled from relief.

“Oh, thank god,” she exhaled. “Are you all right? The students—are they all okay?”

One of John Henry’s dark eyebrows rose. “Yeah,” he drawled. “Why?”

“Michael Langdon isn’t here, is he?” Her tone had turned dangerous, the hate dripping from her curt question.

“Haven’t seen him since he fucked off into the woods, Cordelia.” He pushed off the wall and moved to let her and the girls through, then took a drag from his cigarette. He sounded annoyed. “What is it? Kind of late to be making unannounced house calls. It’s past curfew.”

“We’re not here for your witty comebacks, asshole,” Madison countered.

Before John Henry could take offense, Cordelia started down the hall toward the elevator, the girls following close behind, a cacophony of heels ricocheting across marble and stone.

“We don’t have a lot of time.”

“You want to explain what’s going on?”

They took the elevator down beneath the earth. John Henry leaned against the wall, taking long drags from his cigarette and eyeing the group of young witches congregated tightly opposite him. Madison was silently furious, arms crossed over her chest, her sharp glare fixed on the closed doors. Mallory sniffled, drabbing at her eyes with the edge of a long, black sleeve. Emily found solace in Coco, her head pressed to Coco’s shoulder. Cordelia looked beside herself, her gaze distant, restless as they waited for the elevator doors to hiss open.

“You were right.” Cordelia’s voice broke, frayed with the tears that still trickled down her cheeks. “About everything. You were right.”

“Now what’s all this?” Behold Chablis joined them as they filed into the cavernous heart of The Hawthorne School, a labyrinth of candle lit staircases and hallways. His question, rising sharply at the end, filled up the quiet. The students were locked away in their dormitories for the night. Safe and oblivious to the danger heading their way, for now.

“Miss Goode was just about to tell me.”

“Langdon,” her voice cut deeply into the name as her eyes fluttered closed to stave off more tears, “Michael Langdon…_murdered_ my girls. We were lucky to escape when we did. And if we don’t act now, then this school—you and your students are next. I don’t know how much time we have.”

“Jesus.” John Henry muttered. He turned away, scratching at an eyebrow with the edge of his thumbnail.

Behold’s dark eyes widened. “I’ll evacuate the school.”

“No,” Cordelia said. “We might need them.”

“For _what_?” Behold asked. “I’m not leaving our boys to be some Antichrist’s cannon fodder, Miss Supreme. Not after he slaughtered your girls.”

“Coming here wasn’t about just warning you. We need a curse,” she explained. Madison and Mallory exchanged looks of surprise before they caught her eye. She’d kept her plans to herself, an impulsive decision on the flight to California. “And if memory serves, the reigning expert on curses is you.” She turned to John Henry.

At her pointed look, he scoffed. “We need a firing squad, not a curse.”

“Shockingly, I agree,” Coco said softly.

“You never said shit about that,” Madison said. “I mean, what the fuck, Cordelia?”

“We have to fight him,” Emily agreed. “I don’t care what it takes.”

Mallory’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of curse?”

John Henry held up a hand. “Forget it.”

“He has too much power now,” Cordelia reasoned. “We can’t kill him…we can’t even stop him if we tried. I felt that power when he broke past the defenses at Robichaux—Langdon’s the Devil’s son, and that makes him invincible. Our only choice is to play the long game. Survive the impossible, together, and create something that tears him down, bit by bit. Make him his own demise.”

“So your solution is,” Behold drawled, “to…sit back and watch the world go up in flames? Let him win?”

“He’ll_ think_ he’s won,” Cordelia said, a determined grin curving one side of her mouth despite the tears that welled in her eyes. “And then he’ll get what he deserves for all the chaos he’s wrought, slowly, until his death sets things right again. A hard reset. Everything back to the way it was.”

She’d had a lot of time to think on the plane.

John Henry laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “That’s a tall order.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Madison rolled her eyes.

“Wait,” Coco interrupted. “Can we…really do that?”

“No,” Behold answered at the same time John Henry deadpanned a halfhearted, “Definitely not.”

“_Yes_,” Cordelia insisted, her voice shaking. Her gaze flittered to Mallory, who hadn’t spoken a word of dissent or skepticism. “There’s enough power in this room—in this school. If we combine that magic, I know we can. I have to believe it, otherwise what else do we have left?”

“Curses are stubborn. Delicate,” John Henry said. “They have to be precise, not to mention the amount of magic they require. You can’t engineer a curse in a single night, Cordelia, it can’t be done. Not for what you’re asking.”

“We have to find a way.”

“It’s just not possible,” seemed to be John Henry’s final answer. Resolved to defeat.

“I’m sorry,” Behold offered. “Wish we could—”

“I think we should do it,” Mallory said. “I know…I know Cordelia’s right. We have enough magic right here in this room. We have to try.”

“What the hell, right?” Madison flicked her long hair behind her shoulder. “Mallory’s magic could power the whole curse by itself. I’ve seen it.”

The witches murmured their agreement.

“It’s not the magic I’m worried about,” John Henry replied. “Curses are unwieldy. I’ve never designed one this complex.”

“Well,” Coco said brightly. “First time for everything.”

* * *

They settled into the central hub of The Hawthorne School, their work lit by roaring fires and sconces on the walls. John Henry gave each of them a task based on their skill level, some facet of the curse that was theirs to render with their magic. By that time, he and Behold determined that they’d only need a few of the students lend their talents, and the rest would be sent in groups to scatter themselves in different directions across the state. To escape and survive the impossible, as Cordelia said.

Three Hawthorne students had joined the witches and John Henry, chosen by Behold’s own meticulous eye. He knew those boys well enough, saw their magic at work in his classes. They’d proven to be the most proficient with the incantations and sigils needed to design their curse.

Timothy, Andre, and Gallant circled around John Henry like a trio of baby ducklings, a force of habit that couldn’t be broken even under the unusual circumstances. The boys cast wary glances at the witches in their midst, unused to working alongside them. They were half-dressed in their Hawthorne uniforms, not quite so polished, the dress codes forgotten. Sleep still clouded their vision as they struggled with whatever archaic texts John Henry shoved at them.

The room was a mess—papers littered with John Henry’s inelegant scrawl, more discarded on the floor than kept for revision; old books heavy with a musty scent in careless piles for reference. Most were in Latin, others almost unreadable even to Cordelia’s rather astute magical knowledge.

She hoped these archaic words and symbols would be enough. There had been more than one argument ricocheting off the vaulted ceilings in the long hours they’d spent working on this. Cordelia knew what it would take, how she wanted the curse to evolve as time wore on, but translating that to magic had John Henry at his wit’s end.

There were variables to consider. And layers upon layers of incantations, each with a specific purpose. Not to mention, they had to put the entire world back together—and billions of lives—once the curse had slowly withered Langdon away. One wrong link in that chain and everything else would crumble. So, of course, there had been shouting matches and a litany of swearing and one instance of John Henry walking the fuck out of the room for another cigarette as tensions ran high.

“We need a failsafe,” John Henry decided.

Cordelia reached over the table of papers and books to reach her wine glass. “Like what?”

John Henry sighed, ink-stained fingers splayed on the tabletop. He slumped forward a little and stifled a yawn. “You said it yourself. Kid’s got the protection of fucking Satan. If this isn’t enough to wear that down and kill him over time, we’re gonna need backup. Another way to take the shot. So to speak.”

“Well, he’s still half-human.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” Behold mused. He refilled Cordelia’s wine glass with a languid sweep of his fingers.

“I’m talking about emotionally,” she explained. “He’s…sensitive. You saw his reaction when we retaliated. The way he cried over that woman. I don’t have much hope for whatever humanity is left in him, but if we can use it to bring him down, that might be our only shot. If the evil in him doesn’t break him, then maybe his heart will.”

“You think _the Antichrist_ is capable of love?” Behold raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “That human heart of his—_Michael’s_ heart—might.”

John Henry heaved another long-suffering sigh. “That’s a gamble.” 

Cordelia took a sip of wine, her gaze downcast to the scattering of notes. “It’s all we have.”

They chose the main foyer to lay their trap.

Right below where the two central staircases converged, there was ample floor space. Langdon would have to set foot there when he arrived at Hawthorne, and by the time he recognized the power that surrounded him, it would be too late. For that to work, they needed the curse to soak into every single fiber of the room, to make the space itself alive with the full force of their magic.

And piece by piece, it did.

Sigils were burned into the floor, where they disappeared out of sight. That was Mallory’s doing, her strong, unwavering magic building the foundations of the curse. She had the most work of all, though she didn’t complain about it. Not once. Not even when she and Cordelia and Behold had to figure out the complex magic involved in restoring the entire Earth. The hard reset Cordelia insisted on seemed to be beyond anyone’s capabilities. But she was the exception.

More sigils were inlaid in the walls. John Henry oversaw the precise order and placement of each one from the notes that no one could read because he’d written them. The incantations were the most important—and required every single witch and warlock to chant the ancient words as one. That was the trickiest part. John Henry, Behold, and Cordelia went over the exact pronunciation beforehand until their students were tired of it; archaic Latin wasn’t everyone’s best subject at either school of magic, and one wrong syllable would topple all their hard work.

Designing a curse was fucking exhausting.

Emily slumped onto the staircase. Through a yawn, she asked, “So, what happens now?”

“This is going to get ugly,” John Henry said, running a palm across his face. “He’s coming here for revenge. He’ll want blood.”

“Which means you all need to get yourselves out of here,” Behold agreed.

“The three of us will stay behind,” Cordelia said. She studied the weary faces in front of her, so young, trying to hide their fear. “We’ll get out once we know Langdon’s activated the curse. But if this works—”

“And it should,” John Henry grumbled.

“We’ll have to stick close,” Cordelia told them. “We have to see this through to the end.”

* * *

A midday sun blazed scorching hot across the dry desert earth. Michael Langdon inhaled the scent of dust and heat, pausing to consider the gruesome scene in front of him. Three large birds, their pitch black feathers fluttering, beady eyes reflecting the bright sky, poked at an animal carcass. He couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe a rabbit or a squirrel; tufts of brown fur were lost in the gore, dark scarlet staining the cracked earth. Two of the birds fought over the animal’s innards, pulling at them with their sharp beaks. Michael turned away, slightly unsettled, the edge of his cape rustling in the wind. He had no reason to fear the blackbirds—they were harbingers of his father’s presence, they kept a watchful eye from above.

And they wouldn’t be the only ones to spill blood today.

Michael drew in another deep breath, his fingers curling into light fists at his sides. He wasn’t so blinded by his own rage and vengeance that he couldn’t sense the magic inside Hawthorne. It was almost oppressive. It had never been that way before, not when he was a student. Maybe then he hadn’t been so sensitive to it. The power inside him was far stronger than it had been when he turned the library into a furious snowstorm. But now Hawthorne’s magic felt different to him, seeping out of the strange building to coil at his shoes like a fine mist.

It was strong. Defensive, he thought, if he had to give it a particular quality. But it wouldn’t give him any trouble. No witch or warlock had the power to rival Satan’s own son.

Hawthorne was quiet. Michael noticed an unusual tension in the air, a breath away from snapping. He could still remember the meticulous class schedules and customs, how the halls were always buzzing with noise and footsteps and voices chanting. Lessons took up every odd corner and room. The only time he’d ever seen it this quiet had been long after curfew, when he’d slip away to visit Ms. Mead, memorize the layout of the school, or try and contact his father.

It was just after twelve thirty in the afternoon. And yet, the halls were abandoned.

_No_, Michael thought, a snarl on his lips. _Evacuated._

Someone told them he was coming.

“Cordelia,” Michael growled.

“Hello, Michael.” The voice was a gruff, familiar one that hadn’t so much said his name as it had spat it back at his feet.

Michael found John Henry Moore sitting in the middle of one of the main staircases. A single, flickering flame from a lighter—which he appeared to have some trouble igniting—illuminated the purple shadows beneath his eyes and his jaw shadowed by stubble. His gaze was dark, sharp as a razor.

“I thought you would have been smart enough to leave,” Michael said. His voice carried, bouncing off the cavernous walls as he approached. “After all, you were the one to see past the bullshit. You had me all figured out.”

John Henry’s gaze didn’t break from him, not when he took a long drag from his cigarette. Michael tilted his head a little, a provocation for whatever sarcastic comment John Henry had to offer him. The school’s magic still pressed in on him at all sides, in relentless waves, though there was no one else in sight. He listened, fingers flexing at nothing, stirring up the air. Testing it.

With a rough flick of his wrist, Michael sent John Henry flying backward up the staircase. His lighter clattered onto the steps at the same time his body landed with a _crack_, his neck twisted at a sickening, abnormal angle. A thin ribbon of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth onto the floorboards. His open, sightless eyes reminded Michael of the blackbirds feasting on their gory prey.

Michael lifted his chin in approval. But when he stepped forward to admire his grim handiwork, the magic in the room seemed to shift. Michael staggered back from the intensity of it, the crushing weight he felt from all sides. It immobilized him, kept him rooted to the spot where he stood. His hands curled into fists so tight that his nails bit into the skin of his palms. He tried to push against it, break it down like he’d torn through the defenses at the witches’ school. A hoarse, mournful, frustrated cry ripped free from his throat as the magic overpowered him and forced his knees to collapse.

And when he looked up, beneath the curls that had fallen into his eyes, he saw how the room itself had changed. He watched the markings surface on the walls. Symbols that meant nothing to him, scored into the stone and wood and tile as if they’d been etched there by fire. He lifted his palm when they appeared under him like they’d scorch his flesh. The complicated patterns arranged one by one, circle by circle. There was no one else in the room with him, not that he could see, but the air echoed with voices. They chanted as one, their ghostly chorus filling up the silence. Words he’d never heard before.

Words, he realized, that were meant to harm him.

“You’re not used to weakness, are you?” another voice asked.

“Cordelia,” Michael spat.

The ground trembled under the influence of magic. Some of the fires in the sconces on the walls flickered out. Michael let out a sob when the suffocating weight of the magic surrounding him turned into a sudden flash of pain. He fought again, pushing a hand toward Cordelia, fingers rigid with agony and a surge of pure hatred. Cordelia didn’t even flinch.

“You’re just a sad, scared little boy,” she told him. “And if you want to embrace that evil, then fine. You do that. You can tear apart the world until there’s nothing left. But now…it will cost you, Michael.”

“It already has,” Michael sobbed through gritted teeth.

“No.” Cordelia shook her head. “Not like this. If you want to become a monster, then who are we to deny you that? Your actions will have consequences, now; ones you won’t have any control over. The further you descend into darkness, you’ll have to live with what your choices have done to you. Every time you look at your reflection—when you see all that beauty withering away, you’ll think of the lives you’ve stolen and all the times you could’ve stopped. But no amount of regret will help you. It’s too late, Michael.”

A pain Michael couldn’t find the words for took hold of him, forcing another strangled cry from his lips. He was sprawled on the floor, muscles tense, tears streaming down the swell of his cheekbones. He felt the magic seeping into him, latching onto his bones, branding itself onto his very soul.

“Enjoy your apocalypse.”

The air went still and silent. Michael sensed the remnants of the magic as it receded and let go of him. There was nothing left except the sound of his ragged breathing. When he pushed himself off the floor onto his elbows, ignoring the deep, lingering ache in his body, Cordelia had disappeared. Her escape, and the warlocks’ covert plan to destroy him, renewed the flicker of rage in his heart.

Michael staggered back into the daylight with a curse sitting in his veins like poison.


End file.
